Thunder and lightning continued until well into this morning, but the stormy weather late yesterday afternoon and into the early evening seemed to be more about bark than bite, with little reported damage from hail.
Despite some hail being as big as golf balls, one of the most costly targets of the phenomenon—motor vehicles—seemed to have been spared for the most part.
“We got some minor damage,” said Roy Avis of West End Motors. “It’s not as bad as what we have had in the past.”
“I had one person call this morning, and he just had a handful of dents,” noted Ron Yellowega of Ron’s Auto Body here.
“I’m sure if people had any real hail damage, they’d be calling,” he added.
Yellowega was at his shop yesterday evening when the hail fell and inspected some vehicles on the lot immediately afterwards, finding little to no damage.
“I don’t think the hail was big enough,” said Kevin McLean of McLean’s Auto Body in Barwick, noting he hasn’t heard of much damage from the hail from anyone in the Fort Frances area.
No hail fell as far west as Barwick, he added.
Etienne Gregoire, an meteorologist with Environment Canada, said this morning he wasn’t sure how much of the district, or even region, was hit by the thunderstorm and accompanying hail.
“As intense as it can be, this kind of activity is very local,” he explained, adding he received one report on “golfball-sized” hail in Fort Frances and another earlier in the day from the Dryden area.
“But as far as I know, this is the first severe summer weather we’ve seen in Ontario this year,” Gregoire remarked.
While the west end of the district saw hail last year, the last time Fort Frances experienced the icy stuff was in the summer of 2003.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
